In contrast to petty-bourgeois democrats, Marx saw in all without exception democratic demands not an absolute, but rather the historical expression of the struggle of the popular masses led by the bourgeoisie against feudalism. There is not a single one of these demands that could not serve and has not served, under certain circumstances, as an instrument of deception of the workers by the bourgeoisie. To single out in this respect one of the demands of political democracy — namely, the self-determination of nations — and to counterpose it to all the others is fundamentally mistaken theoretically. In practice, the proletariat can preserve its independence only by subordinating its struggle for all democratic demands, not excluding the republic, to its revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie.

On the other hand, in contrast to the Proudhonists, who "negated" the national question "in the name of social revolution," Marx placed in the foreground, having in view above all the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat in the advanced countries, the fundamental principle of internationalism and socialism: a people that oppresses other peoples cannot be free{95}. It was precisely from the standpoint of the interests of the revolutionary movement of German workers that Marx demanded in 1848 that victorious German democracy proclaim and implement the freedom of the peoples oppressed by Germans{96}. It was precisely from the standpoint of the revolutionary struggle of English workers that Marx demanded in 1869 the separation of Ireland from England, and he added: "even if after separation the matter were to come to federation"{97}. Only by posing such a demand did Marx truly educate English workers in the internationalist spirit. Only thus could he counterpose to opportunists and bourgeois reformism — which even now, half a century later, has not implemented the Irish "reform" — the revolutionary solution of this historical task. Only thus could Marx, in contrast to the apologists of capital who cry out about the utopianism and impossibility of freedom of secession for small nations and about the progressiveness of not only economic but also political concentration, defend the progressiveness of this concentration not in an imperialist fashion, defend the rapprochement of nations on the basis not of violence but of free alliance of the proletarians of all countries. Only thus could Marx counterpose to verbal, and often hypocritical, recognition of the equality and self-determination of nations the revolutionary action of the masses in the sphere of solving national questions as well. The imperialist war of 1914–1916 and the Augean stables of opportunist and Kautskyan hypocrisy it exposed have vividly confirmed the correctness of this policy of Marx, which ought to become the model for all advanced countries, for now each of them oppresses foreign nations[62].